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BlackBerry Torch 9810 and 9860 may drop on Telus August 15th
First we hear rumors of new BlackBerry devices, followed by the official announcement last week. Now, we're treated to speculation of when these aforementioned smartphones will actually arrive. If the leaked screenshots you see above and below are genuine, we only have one more week until Canadian carrier Telus welcomes two members of RIM's fall lineup. This carries a lot more weight when considering the supposed launch date is just one day before Bell's rumored August 16th release, and factoring in evidence of the 9810's impending sale on Rogers. We're still awaiting pricing info for the two devices, and anticipate rumors of the Bold 9900 launch sometime soon. The likelihood of waiting long for more info is pretty low; given how Telus has spilled the beans on a few new devices lately, we wouldn't be surprised to see more of the same coming down the pipeline soon.
RIM's BlackBerry Curve 9360 outed -- is this Apollo?
Did RIM forget this budget entry update, or was it pushed aside for this morning's announcements of its higher-end BlackBerry brothers? No matter the case, OneMobileRing got a hands-on with the Curve 9360, and it looks like this portrait QWERTY could be following in its brethren's OS 7 footsteps. Shots of the device reveal a Tour-like chrome trim, optical trackpad and the requisite micro-USB port for your charging / connectivity needs. A pic of the device's open battery door also shows off a SIM card slot, leading us to believe that this may very well be the ever-elusive Apollo. Could we see this mid-end, GSM workhorse in T-Mobile's near future? Our in-house Ms. Cleo predicts a yes.
BlackBerry Bold 9900 and Torch 9810 to hit Bell on August 16th?
Just when you think the BlackBerry news is over... BOOM. More RIM-related intelligence is coming down the pipeline, although this time it doesn't have the word "official" stamped all over it. Leaked screenshots uncovered by Crackberry indicate Canadian carrier Bell is eager to launch two BlackBerry devices on August 16th -- the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and Torch 9810 (aka the Torch 2). Given Research in Motion's announcements this morning, this won't really be too much of a surprise to anyone if the leaked dates are right on target -- after all, we already know the 9810 is heading Bell's way sometime this month, we just haven't heard exactly when yet -- but at least Waterloo's fall lineup is coming out swinging. The remaining question has to do with what happens afterward: will it result in a home run, or a strikeout to end the inning? The ball's quickly approaching, so we won't need to wait too long to find out. [Thanks, Jordan]
AT&T to launch BlackBerry Torch 9810 this month, Torch 9860 and Bold 9900 later this year
Research in Motion has had better days -- and years, for that matter -- but it's always had a loyal partner in AT&T, a company that's cranked out BlackBerry products faithfully for the past twelve years. The tradition continues, as the GSM giant has announced its intentions to bring the 4G BlackBerry Torch 9810 (aka the Torch 2) to stores sometime this month, followed by the 4G BlackBerry Torch 9860 and 4G Bold 9900 "later this year." No specific dates or prices were given on any of the devices. The Torch 9810 comes with a 1.2GHz CPU, 3.2-inch touch display, a total of 8GB internal memory (with microSD expansion up to 32GB), and a 5 megapixel camera with 720p HD video capture. Oh, and about the "4G" in the title? An AT&T spokesperson confirmed to us that the moniker is simply referring to HSPA+, capping at 14.4Mbps. It's definitely a step up from the original Torch 9800, at least, but our appetite for 4G of the LTE variety runs deep. Will this be too little too late for the Canadian manufacturer, or can this year's fall lineup be enough to keep the company healthy until QNX rolls into town? [Thanks, Gary]
RIM aims to launch seven smartphones with BlackBerry OS 7 in 'the coming months'
It may look like it's losing the ongoing smartphone war, but Research in Motion is at least preparing for the next battle with reinforcements. Co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis announced at this week's annual shareholder meeting that seven new OS 7-powered BlackBerry smartphones are set to be launched in the near future. As the company struggles to meet its financial goals due to delays, it's confident that releasing a large number of smartphones will make up for a miserable Q1 and get RIM back on track by the end of the year. This seems to be a bitter contrast to earlier rumors suggesting the company scrapped other projects to make room for its QNX "superphone." No word was given by either executive as to which phones we can expect, nor the precise dates when these devices will become available. We also haven't heard if the Bold Touch series is included as part of that count since its launch looks to have been pushed back. Lazaridis mentioned the delays are a result of his company trying to meet (read: not exceed) consumer expectations, and that RIM will "come out ahead" in the smartphone race. Now that's extraordinary confidence; unless the execs had a heart-to-heart with the anonymous letter-writer, however, it's a hard pill to swallow. [Image courtesy of CrackBerry]
BlackBerry 'Apollo' gets manhandled on camera (video)
It's not exactly the most exciting device in RIM's pipeline, but the Curve "Apollo" is shaping a solid workhorse of a BlackBerry. The still-unannounced smartphone popped up on Tinh te, with the Vietnamese tech showing off some solid hands-on time with the device, putting it through its paces on video, and ending up genuinely impressed with the aesthetics and speed of the hardware. According to the site the new Curve is 11mm thick (a couple millimeters thinner than the 8900 it's juxtaposed with), packs a 800Mhz Marvell Tavor CPU MG-1 processor, and has a touch-insensitive 480 x 360 screen. Swipe that thumb touchpad after the break for a video tour of the phone, then dig the source link for more close up images. [Thanks, Anonymous]
Put a Windows Phone 7 theme on your iPhone
Been trying to think of a way to try out a new Windows phone without crossing over to the dark side switching sides? If that's the case and you have been looking for a way to recreate the Windows Phone 7 interactive theme on your iPhone or iPod touch, Wyndwarrior's "OS7" is available in public beta for anyone with a hankering for Windows on their jailbroken iOS device. Here are the instructions from modmyi.com on how you can try it out if you are so inclined: 1. Install Backboard from Cydia. 2. Make sure you have created a "Default" backup; if not, press the add button in Backboard and give it a name. 3. Go on your device and click on this link: backboard://http://wyndrepo.googleco...es/OS7Beta.zip 4. Press "Yes" and wait for it to download. This may take a few minutes depending on your internet connection. 5. Select OS7 from Backboard. Press Install. Respring. Voting is going on right now to set the as-yet-unknown price for OS7, so if you want in on the action, you may want to get your voice heard. Click Read More to check out video of the OS7 demo. [via Engadget]
Windows Phone 7's live tiles turned into a pretty convincing iOS theme (video)
Had enough of seeing grids and folders of static (Calendar app excluded, of course) icons on your iDevice? Well, here's one option to relieving your tedium: a Windows Phone 7 theme for the iPhone and iPod touch. You'll naturally need to jailbreak your iOS handheld in order to restyle it quite so dramatically, but once you do, you'll have all your precious apps sorted in a neat alphabetical pile on one screen, with the other waiting patiently for your customizations and live tile choices. It's a good looking little mod, we have to say, and it's currently going through beta testing, so why not grab your iPhone and see if it can survive a lick of Microsoft paint without self-combusting?
The Unreliable LISA
I missed the earliest Apples, having bought a NEC PC-8001 in 1981 and then a Convergent Technologies/Burroughs B20 in 1985. Both were clients of my ad agency; neither were bad machines, with color monitors and some graphics capabilities. The B20 drove a Qume daisywheel printer at about 20 characters/second. I was a victim of Apple's drive toward dominance with creative types. While today's G5 is highly regarded by creative professionals, this reputation was not established in 1987. When I joined Prime Computer in mid-1987 as a speechwriter, I inherited one of the first Lisas, with one 10 Mbyte hard drive, one floppy and a black-and-white display that was bit-mapped. I also had an alphanumeric terminal for a Prime system and a PC/AT with an Intel 80286 processor, a bit-mapped color display, and a link to a color printer. Soon I had a fourth computer, a Macintosh 4/40. Apple was not that special in 1987. The Lisa was a miserable machine, prone to crashes and some rather weird results on laser printers. A single page of text or graphics could be translated into a hundred pages of gibberish. I worked many 70-hour weeks due to Lisa crashes, and nearly got fired when one crash destroyed my boss's presentation a few hours before a board meeting. Yes, I saved regularly, but a Lisa crash usually destroyed everything, including the ability to read backup copies. The only way to reboot a Lisa was to pull the plug, wait a few minutes, and try again. It was that unstable. The Lisa died when I spilled a cup of coffee onto its keyboard at 8 PM, trying to finish a speech for the next day. I was holding the keyboard vertically over a trash can, trying to drain the coffee out, when the president walked in. He asked when he would see his speech. I shook the keyboard to get the last of the coffee out, and held it out to him. "Your speech is in here somewhere." I rewrote the speech on Prime's crude text editor, finishing at 2 A.M. Prime decided to acquire Computervision during the fall of 1987. The presentation for the board of directors was authored on a Macintosh, with MacPaint. I didn't understand MacPaint, and the original author didn't understand MacPaint. I sometimes wonder if anyone really understood MacPaint. Unfortunately, a computer support guy found a new keyboard for the Lisa. My workdays went from 12 hours to 16 hours, trying to undo/redo/edit the presentation. I loved the WYSIWYG bit-mapped text, which was revolutionary. I could bring a Prime minicomputer to its knees composing a four-page newsletter for output on a laser printer. If I made the tiniest mistake, I had to do it again. That meant the game Tetris slowed to a crawl: the highest previous score was about 6500; I gave up at about 65,000 playing Tetris while my newsletter was being processed. The Mac 4/40 ended that escapade. My boss and I considered throwing the Lisa out of his third-story corner office into the parking lot, except we knew the glass was too strong. So one day it went out of my office on a cart, destination unknown. The Mac 4/40, for 4 megabytes of memory and 40 mbytes of disk, lasted for many years. In spare time, I designed my house on it, with MacPaint, which evolved into Canvas. I used Canvas to design, and illustrate, my model railroad. I'm now on an original dual-processor G5, with a newer MacBook Pro when I travel. Apple's philosophy has won my heart, but it took quite a few years before I could say it was correct.
